01 Meditation Panel Preface.indd - United Nations Day of Vesak 2013

Conference
Table 11: Solace from the rituals:
Solace in Ritual No. %
Yes 60 100%
No 00 00
According to the Table 11, all the respondents who have followed rituals pertaining to life
crises events have obtained solace and comfort by them.
Five case studies also reveal the same that the rituals pertaining to life crises grant them
immense consolations. All the respondents who belong to the age group of 30-60 bear the same
notion and engaged in these rituals to protect them and alleviate the calamities of their lives.
Conclusion
Schechner 7 says that rituals are performable: they are acts done; and performances are
ritualized; they are codied, repeatable actions. The functions of theater, identied by Aristotle and
Horace- entertainment, celebration, enhancement of social solidarity, education, and healing-are also
functions of ritual. The differences lie in context and emphasis. Rituals emphasize efcacy: healing
the sick, initiating neophytes, burying the dead, teaching the ignorant, forming and cementing social
relations, maintaining (or overthrowing) the status quo, remembering the past, propitiating the gods,
exorcising the demonic, maintaining cosmic order. Rituals are performed in order, at special locations,
regardless of weather or attendance. They mark days and places of importance: or are hung on life’s
hinges where individual experience connects the society.
This study reveals that the Sri Lankan Buddhists gain relief and comfort from their life
crises and misfortunes through the Buddhist rituals involving the powers of pirith chanting, reciting
benedictory verses, bodhi-pooja, intervention of gods, meditation etc.
7
(1994:613).
322